In a world of armed conflict, what hope is there for climate change?

Sunday 22 February 2026

In February 2022, as Russian armour crossed Ukraine’s borders and Europe rediscovered the vocabulary of trench warfare, something else crossed an invisible threshold. Climate change — the defining, slow-burning crisis of the early twenty-first century — was abruptly displaced from the centre of political discourse by the return of hard geopolitics. Defence budgets swelled. Energy security trumped decarbonisation. Coal plants were reopened in the name of sovereignty. The language of survival shifted from carbon budgets to artillery shells.

In such a world — one of violent conflict, contested borders and intensifying rivalry between great powers — what hope is left for the climate change movement? And if it is neglected, what becomes of both humanity and the ecosystems upon which she depends?

To answer that question one must first confront a paradox. Climate change is a global collective action problem that demands long-term cooperation. War is the breakdown of cooperation, the triumph of immediacy over foresight. The political psychology of conflict is inimical to the patient work of decarbonisation. Yet the physics of the atmosphere is indifferent to human quarrels.

The post-Cold War optimism that underpinned agreements such as the Paris Agreement assumed an increasingly interdependent world — one in which economic integration would reinforce environmental governance. The Paris framework relied upon peer pressure, voluntary national commitments and reputational incentives. It was conceived in an era when globalisation appeared irreversible.

That era has ended.

The war in Ukraine, tensions over Taiwan, instability in the Middle East and the fragmentation of trade into rival blocs have accelerated a process already underway. Sanctions regimes, export controls and supply-chain securitisation are now central features of international relations. States speak openly of strategic autonomy. In such an environment, climate diplomacy struggles to command attention.

Yet hope has not entirely vanished. It has merely changed form.

First, climate change has become entangled with national security. The same governments that justify expanded military spending increasingly acknowledge climate instability as a threat multiplier — exacerbating migration, food insecurity and regional conflict. Drought in North Africa can destabilise governments. Rising sea levels threaten naval bases. Melting Arctic ice opens new strategic theatres. In the strategic doctrines of NATO and the European Union, climate resilience now appears not as moral aspiration but as defensive necessity.

Second, the economics of renewable energy have shifted decisively. Solar and wind power are no longer niche technologies subsidised for virtue’s sake; in many markets they are the cheapest new sources of electricity. Battery storage continues to improve. Even in a fractured world, states seek energy independence. The pursuit of sovereignty may, paradoxically, accelerate decarbonisation — as imported hydrocarbons are replaced with domestically generated renewables. The shock of disrupted gas supplies to Europe in 2022 hastened investments in alternative infrastructure. What began as a security measure became a structural transformation.

Third, private capital — less constrained by electoral cycles — continues to flow into green technologies. Financial markets, insurers and multinational corporations recognise climate risk as balance-sheet risk. Even amidst geopolitical confrontation, the arithmetic of risk pricing does not disappear.

And yet these grounds for cautious optimism are fragile.

War is carbon-intensive. Armies burn vast quantities of fuel. Reconstruction after devastation requires cement, steel and energy. When governments prioritise defence procurement, climate investment competes for finite fiscal resources. In democratic systems under strain, electorates anxious about inflation and security may view environmental regulation as an unaffordable luxury.

Moreover geopolitical fragmentation undermines the global coordination essential to limit warming to manageable levels. The atmosphere does not recognise sanctions or alliances. If major emitters retreat into rival camps, mutual suspicion may obstruct technology transfer and financing for developing countries. A world divided into blocs risks climate paralysis — each side waiting for the other to act first.

If the climate movement is neglected — if warming proceeds unchecked — the consequences will be neither abstract nor evenly distributed.

Scientifically, the trajectory is clear. As global average temperatures rise beyond 1.5°C and approach 2°C or more above pre-industrial levels, extreme weather intensifies. Heatwaves become deadlier. Precipitation patterns grow erratic. Agricultural yields in vulnerable regions decline. Coral reefs bleach and collapse. Forests, stressed by drought and fire, shift from carbon sinks to carbon sources.

For humanity the implications are profound.

Water scarcity will displace populations. Low-lying coastal cities — from Dhaka to Lagos — will confront existential choices. Insurance markets may withdraw from high-risk areas, rendering homes uninsurable and mortgages unobtainable. Food price volatility will aggravate social unrest. Migration pressures will intensify at precisely the moment when many states are erecting higher barriers to movement.

In geopolitical terms climate neglect risks a vicious circle. Environmental degradation fuels instability; instability diverts attention and resources away from mitigation; warming accelerates. Regions already weakened by conflict — parts of the Sahel, the Middle East or South Asia — may become arenas where climate stress and political fragility interact explosively.

Ecologically, the losses could be irreversible on human timescales. Species extinction rates will accelerate. Ocean acidification will alter marine food chains. The Amazon rainforest — long a stabilising climatic force — could tip towards savannah if deforestation and warming combine. Once certain tipping points are crossed, feedback loops may amplify warming beyond immediate human control.

The moral dimension cannot be ignored. Those least responsible for historical emissions — poorer nations and future generations — will bear disproportionate burdens. Climate change, if neglected, becomes an intergenerational injustice of unprecedented scale.

And yet despair is neither analytically sound nor politically useful.

History suggests that crises can catalyse transformation. The oil shocks of the 1970s reshaped energy policy. The devastation of European wars gave birth to integration projects that once seemed utopian. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated technological adoption and fiscal innovation. It is conceivable that the very instability of the current geopolitical order will eventually force a reckoning — as climate-induced disasters accumulate and public tolerance for inaction erodes.

For the climate movement the challenge is adaptation rather than retreat. The language of abstract global stewardship may need to give way to arguments grounded in security, economic competitiveness and resilience. Decarbonisation must be framed not as sacrifice but as strategic advantage. Industrial policy — once unfashionable — is returning under green banners, as states compete to dominate supply chains for batteries, hydrogen and rare earth processing.

There is also a cultural dimension. Even in wartime Ukraine, amidst blackouts and bombardment, civil society organisations continue environmental work — planting trees, advocating for sustainable reconstruction, documenting ecological damage. War does not extinguish moral imagination. It can in some cases sharpen it.

Ultimately, hope for the climate movement in an age of confrontation rests upon a sober recognition: geopolitics and climate are no longer separable domains. A stable climate underpins agricultural productivity, economic growth and national security. Conversely a destabilised climate will magnify every existing rivalry.

If temperatures continue to rise unchecked, humanity will confront not a single cataclysm but a cascading series of stresses — economic, social and ecological. The world will become more unequal, more volatile and less forgiving. The capacity of institutions — already strained by conflict — will be tested further.

The question, therefore, is not whether the climate movement can survive in a world of war. It is whether a world of war can survive without the climate movement.

In the trenches of eastern Ukraine, in the drought-stricken fields of Africa, in the melting permafrost of the Arctic, the same truth endures: the atmosphere does not pause for artillery. It accumulates carbon regardless of human distraction. To neglect climate action amidst geopolitical turmoil is to compound tragedy with folly.

Hope remains — but it demands a reframing of priorities. In a century defined by both conflict and warming, survival itself may become the common ground upon which cooperation is rebuilt.